Woman Hollerin': Texas Democratic Candidates

One of the Guadalupe County Democratic Club members pointed out in an e-mail to me that most of us probably don't know who the Democratic candidates are for the statewide races. I realized that I didn't, and have set out to find out who the candidates are, not just their names but their ideas for how to revive what I think is a healthy competition between parties (maybe it would be better, even, to have competition among several parties) for seats in state government. I'm not far along in this project, but I did find the list of Democratic candidates for all Texas offices.

Here's the short list (leaving out district candidates, which you will find in profusion at the Democratic Party's Web site):

Barbara Ann Radnofsky for senator
Chris Bell for governor
Maria Luisa Alvarado for lieutenant governor
David Van Os for attorney general
Fred Head for comptroller of public accounts
Hank Gilbert for agriculture commissioner
VaLinda Hathcox for land commissioner
Dale Henry for railroad commissioner
William E. "Bill" Moody for justice, Texas Supreme Court, Pl. 2
J.R. Molina for presiding judge, Court of Criminal Appeals

When I started looking at the candidates' own Web sites, I discovered David Van Os has a blog about his grand Texas tour. He calls the meeting Whistlestops. This link will take you to his report of the stop in Seguin.

I'm guessing that some of you moved to Texas as adults and missed the usual public school courses in government that would help you understand what all of these public servants actually do in their various offices. I looked at the Texas Constitution (the links to offices in the list of candidates; candidate links take you to their campaign Web sites) to find the basic descriptions of duties. I found some of them easily but not others.

For example, the Railroad Commission is really important, and not just for railroads, but my quick view of the Constitution didn't tell me much about the office of railroad commissioner. The duties of the governor are spread out in a number of articles.

Texas Politics, a UT site, offers a lot of assistance to those who want to know what happens to our tax dollars Comptroller of Public Accounts or who are perplexed by 19th-century-sounding offices like the General Land Office. Only the state of California has more agricultural production than Texas, so the Commissioner of Agriculture also has a lot of responsibility.

To make sense of the governor's job, go to the beginning of the constitution; you'll pass go after reading much of Article Four on the Executive Department. Texas Politics sums up the powers of the office for those who don't want to sift through sections of the constitution. Actually, the Texas Politics site offers much toward understanding how the government functions in general, including the legislative branch (which I have purposely ignored in this summary).

I'm planning to contact the candidates before writing anything about their campaign planks. More to come.